The King's Cup-Bearer eBook

’Did not Solomon King of Israel sin by these
things? Yet among many nations was there no king
like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made
him king over all Israel: nevertheless even
him did outlandish women cause to sin. Shall
we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil,
to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?’

Did Nehemiah then break up the marriages which had
already taken place, and send the wives away?
We are not told that he did. Probably he only
insisted, and insisted very strongly, that no more
such marriages should take place. For he knew
that if the custom was continued it would lead to
ruin, shame, and disgrace, and he was therefore perfectly
right to take strong measures to put a stop to it.

One man he saw fit to make an example of in a still
more decided way—­one offending member he
felt must be cut off. This was Manasseh, the
grandson of the high priest, the very one who had been
the cause of Tobiah’s entrance into the temple,
and of the friendly feeling that existed between Eliashib
and the Samaritans.

Here was Manasseh, a priest, living in the temple
itself, dressed in the white robe, and taking part
in the service of God, yet all the time having a heathen
wife, and allowing heathen ways in his household.
Manasseh’s wife was actually Sanballat’s
daughter; and so long as he and she remained in the
temple precincts, Nehemiah felt they would never be
free from Sanballat’s influence.

Accordingly we read:

‘I chased him from me.’

Nehemiah banished him from the temple and from Jerusalem,
and Manasseh went away with his wife to her father’s
grand home in Samaria.

No doubt Nehemiah was far from popular in Jerusalem
that night. There were many who thought he had
been too severe, too narrow, too particular.
And doubtless there were many who, if they had dared,
would have rebelled against his decision. But
Nehemiah had done everything; he had taken all these
strong measures, not to please men, but to please
God. If the Master praised him, he cared not what
others might say of him. ‘Lord, what wilt
Thou have me to do?’ was the constant
prayer of Nehemiah’s heart; and though the work
was oftentimes unpopular and disagreeable, Nehemiah
did it both boldly and fearlessly.

The wheel of time goes round, and history, which works
ever in a circle, constantly repeats itself, and so
also does sin. The sin of Nehemiah’s days
is still to be seen; the same temptation which beset
those Jerusalem Jews, besets us even in these more
enlightened days.

We all love company. There is in us a natural
shrinking from being alone and desolate. That
feeling is born in us; we inherit it from our first
father Adam. ‘It is not good for the man
to be alone,’ said the Lord in His tenderness
and His pity.

But a choice lies before us, a choice of friends.
Our relatives are given us by God, no man can choose
who shall be his father, or mother, or brother, or
sister. But our friends are of our own choosing,
and we do not sufficiently consider that upon that
choice may hang our eternity. Heaven with all
its brightness, hell with all its darkness and misery,
which shall be for me? The answer may hang, it
often does hang, on the choice of a friend.